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sfcrazy writes with this excerpt from Muktware: "Samsung, which became a market leader thanks to Android, is reportedly working on a smartphone powered by Linux-based Tizen operating system. The company is working with NTT Docomo to create a Tizen powered smartphone. ... Samsung already has its Bada operating system which it uses in some devices. Samsung was expected to merge Bada efforts with Tizen but there has been no attempt in that regards. How Samsung, the Android market leader, positions this phone and creates an app ecosystem around it will be interesting to watch."

From Samsung and HTC sure. Buy some other brand, and they get nothing.

And I'm not even sure that they are collecting anything from the two - considering how fast the deals were made.

MSFT needs Samsung and HTC - as Windows phone producers - more than they need MSFT. It's very likely that under the deal they pay the usual Windows phone license fees, which now also magically (and mostly for PR purposes) covers the MSFT's Android claims.

Bada is dead as far as I can see, the last handsets running that OS were released in 2011, with no activity at all during 2012. It would seem pretty obvious though that Samsung would develop a Tizen handset as it was a leading proponent of LiMo which folded into Tizen.

Whether or not anyone will care about Tizen is another matter. Samsung tried to push LiMo with the Vodafone 360 range back in 2009. That was pretty much a failure, I don't think that the odds are in favour of a Tizen device, especially if it

I don't think that the odds are in favour of a Tizen device, especially if it is a carrier exclusive.

But it might work in the rest of the world, where carrier-exclusive handsets are uncommon. Such tying of handsets to carriers is sometimes frowned upon legally, but more often rejected by the customers who recognize its inherent disadvantages for them. Actually, many of us can't fathom the carrier-exclusivity and "subsidies" which are widespread in the US market.

1- people would rather pay $100 up front and then $100 per month for 2 years (total = $2.500) rather than $600 + $50x25 = $1.850. that's idiotic, but that's the way the mind works.2- People don't realize they'd pay a lot less by doing a consumer credit on the phone, and getting a no-commitment contract3- The government is not acting against what are, in effect, usury rates

Your reasons are correct. #1 is the biggest problem though. It stems from the fact that most children in the US are never taught what the word "Free" (as in beer) actually means. The word "Free" gets thrown around for things that must be paid for non-stop in the US, and most of the population eats it up.

This summer at the California State Fair, my son got an itch to go and get all of the "Free" stuff that was being offered in the exhibit halls. Having had the "Free" conversation many times, we gave h

In general, I agree with your logic. But in the particular case of smart phones and wireless plans in the US, from my research it's cheaper to go no-contract if you're an individual but cheaper to get a contract if you're buying for two or more people (and plan to stay with the carrier for at least two years).

On contract for Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, and T-Mobile I'm pretty sure the first phone and its minutes and data cost a lot more than a no-contract plan, but each additional phone shares the plan

Samsung Bada phones cost about 20% less than Samsung Android phones based on equivalent hardware (see the Wave 3 vs the Galaxy S Plus for instance). People who buy phones for their out-of-the-box features might be interested in the saving.

To be fair, the handful of people that pay attention to Windows Phone are probably the same handful of consumers that knew Windows Phone 8 was coming in Q4 and also knew that no older Windows Phone devices would get upgraded with the new software.

I've seen Windows Phone and I like it, but I'm not surprised it's dead in the market. Microsoft comes out with Windows Mobile, a few Microsoft enthusiasts buy it, then they abandon it. Then Microsoft comes out with Windows Phone 7, a few Microsoft enthusiasts b

Those statistics include all kinds of Microsoft mobile OSes, including Windows Mobile and Windows Phone 7, which have been around for a long time, and in particular, one is as old as Bada, while the other is much older.

He's not saying that new things are bad, he's saying that new things that have no benefit over the old things are pointless. In fact, he's not even saying that, he's asking what would make this new OS better than existing offerings, enough to make dealing with a new app ecosystem worth bothering with. He's asking a question, not making a statement.

I'm inclined to agree - what's so special about Tizen? Educate on why it'd be worth getting a Tizen phone over Android, Bada, Windows Phone or iOS.

For Samsung, however, moving away from Android likely gets them out of an expensive and pointless proxy war with Apple. That's a big deal for Samsung.

Apple's Android vendetta has been about Holy Vengeance Upon Google from the beginning, not really about Samsung. If Samsung could gain a platform that they won't be sued over for including basic functions, Samsung could get back to the business of making smartphones, rather than being a professional defendant.

Samsung already has their own mobile OS, though: Bada. That's mostly why this move is being questioned as a large "..er?". That and there's actually several existing OS's that are free and open source, so why make yet another one? There has to be more benefit than just "It's not Android" for it to be worthwhile. I don't think anyone thinks Samsung is stupid, I think it's more a case of we don't seem to know a lot about Tizen and what makes it so special.

it'll be cheaper than Android probable, and possibly more profitable for Samsung too (they won't have to pay the Microsoft tax on each android handset)

As for HTML5, its almost certainly crap for high-performance stuff like games, but perfectly capable for the most low-perf stuff like displaying screens and buttons. But then you can say the same for dalvik - all the high-perf apps I have turn out to be written with the NDK. Mozilla's firefox OS would disagree with you though.

Doesn't Dalvik give Android apps CPU independence like Java does, though? I mean, you never know when x86 might actually gain a foothold in mobile, or maybe Hitachi might rise from the ashes with another SuperH chip...

I never really understood what the point of platform independence here is. What is the problem with running a compiler once for every platform you are shipping to, and shipping the right binary to your customers? Is it really worth to pay in performance just to have "platform independence"?

Yes it is worth it. Your suggestion is what the old Windows phones used to do. It simply didn't work. Way too much stuff targeted only one processor, and it was often hard to tell if apps were even written for your device. The speed issue is a red herring. Current processors are plenty fast for running an emulation layer that creates platform independence. The vast majority of users would not notice the difference between an emulated environment vs. a native environment. Most phones are not running t

Platform independence with Java for Android gave Google three big advantages in additions to the ones Belial6 mentioned:

1. The barrier to entry for developers was very low. You can write Android applications using a Mac, a Windows PC, or a Linux PC. For iOS and Windows Phone, you need a Mac or Windows PC, respectively, to develop for it.

2. Java is more widely known and easier to learn than C++ or Objective C.

3. Java has security features built into its virtual machine - you can launch a Java

Why do you say that? First of all, Android is already based on Linux. Second, Android is already more secure than the typical Linux desktop in that the apps are permission-based, compared with the typical desktop apps that run installers as root and have all the permissions of the user when running afterwards.

For consumers what is the benefit of another phone OS with another incompatible app store? What features does this OS have. Is it faster? Cheaper? Prettier?

Probably the same advantages as the Bada OS. In other words, very few advantages for consumers. (Though I'm hopeful that Bada's battery life would get to Tizen. 2-4 days on single charge!)

The purpose of the new OS is to ensure that the manufacturers have a bargaining chip when dealing with the OS providers, Google and Microsoft. Also they can develop it independently and integrate whatever features they want - if the Google or Microsoft are reluctant to act or demand too high pay for the customization.

More competition is always good. Keeps the rest on their toes. That's why I'd like to see MS succeed with their mobile offering - a third player is good, more competition - but unfortunately they messed it up quite thoroughly.

So well maybe Samsung can manage. They have good hardware for starters. Key problem is going to be the apps, of course. Both Android and iOS have created a very serious lock-in factor that way.

Competition is good, but I don't want yet another locked down app platform to choose from. The least locked down is Android because having full root control of the phone does not mean that apps are in any way less contained (unlike iOS where a JB means that the internal security is completely compromised, and apps can write outside of their cells.)

If I could have the ideal OS, it would be like Tizen, except it would allow the RPM packages to have signed native code (which can be written in C, C++, or anyth

Tizen uses sandboxes (where apps can read their files and system libs, but not other app directories), similar to iOS and a security manager called SMACK (Simple Mandatory Access Control Kernel). It uses two UIDs, root and the UID the apps run under. For package management, it appears to use RPM.

I see a number of good/bad/ugly points about it. If I have root on the device, in theory, it should not affect app security (unlike iOS where a

With Android you can use the Native Development Kit if you want to do things that it's not feasible to do well with Java/Dalvik. So I presume Tizen could do the same. HTML5 would be for mainstream applications like Angry Birds and Cut the Rope and weather widgets. I presume you could still write native applications in C or whatever language you wanted, Tizen is open source after all.

In terms of performance, Javascript is on a path to become the fastest interpreted language in the world. IE, Opera, Saf

This is really a hedge against Google. WIth Google aquiring Motorola Mobility, they are actually posed to start producing their own consumer oriented branded hardware for Android. This far the "Google phones/tablets" have really been aimed at developers, not the end consumers. Therefore they aren't a perceived threat to Samsung. But the instant Google gets serious about releasing their own branded hardware aimed at consumers you'll notice how quickly Samsung will start to ship other OSes.

is called HTML5. A lot of the stack can be found and used elsewhere (i.e. Apache Cordova [apache.org]) and shared by a lot of mobile OSs (webos, tizen, bada, sailfish, mer, and probably others, and more important, could be installed in the other platforms, including desktop.

By installing Hydra [maemo.org], the Nokia N9 already supports Cordova, including W3C, Opera and indeed Tizen apps. But it also shows the weak spots: usability, functionality and speed is very much sub par compared to the native Qt environment. And HTML5/JS being a mediocre platform at best for programming applications, I can't find a reason why anyone would want a Tizen device.

I'm much more interested in SailfishOS, which builds on Qt/QML, but will have support for Python and Android as well. Undoubtedly, since Sailfi

All the HTML5 apps I've seen sucked. Don't take my word for it, Zuckerberg made Facebook go back to a native app. Let's face it web developers and their develoment paradigms are not up to the task of really cool, responsive interfaces. If you disagree with me, then please explain how a very organic, unorganized process of evolution from client/server architecture using HTML 1 to 4 coupled with a bolted-on interpreter, and bolted on Style Sheets produce an ideal app development environment.

Going to tizen.org web site, they seem pretty determined to hide information from potential developers. It's not until you get down to the tutorials that they admit supposed "apps" are just html and javascript pages. I can't see a future for a platform with no apps apart from toy ones. I guess it's aimed at dumb-phones given away free by the carriers, but a phone with no apps is going to be a hard sell.

It can't be helped that HTML and JS apps on Mobile Phones haven't been taken seriously, but to be fair they are usually treated as a second citizen there. HTML and JS app is actually a pretty good platform to develop with, it's pretty simple and robust, in my experience. And the growth of development techniques and tools used in web development can also propagate to the development of mobile apps that uses the same technology as a platform.

the market is up for grabs in a GNU/Linux cell phone1. I don't think anyone new is ever going to catch apple/android

2. there is a small niche(self included) market segment, that wants a GNU/Linux phone. These people bought the nokia n900. These are probably the most vicious and loyal fanbois there are, and we've been without a standard phone bearer for 3 years already. There is no reason you won't sell 1 million devices to the same people every development cycle.